Thoughts On A Talos Principle Spin Off

I have had The Talos Principle on my radar for a while, but I took my sweet ass time to eventually buy it. I guess I felt it would never live up to Portal 2 and wasn’t going to be worth the money, how wrong was I! I can very controversially say that I think The Talos Principle is a better game than Portal 2. Opinions aside, I want to talk about the idea of a Talos Principle Sequel or spin off. *Before I go on, this post is going to have some major spoilers, so if you have no beaten The Talos Principle, stop reading now.

The Talos Principle was a fantastic puzzle game on that aspect alone. I could understand how the story might be a little too sci if for some, but I absolutely loved it, the ending in particular. There’s no doubt that there will be a Talos Principle sequel at some stage, but I feel that there is some massive potential in creating a spin off that takes the games story and brings it into a new genre.

There are multiple endings in Talos Principle, the one I want to focus on is the bad ending where you go to the top of the tower. The first thing I asked myself after watching that ending was “I wonder what happened to the humans?”. From the view we saw, it didn’t look like there was a war. The city was clearly abandoned, but it didn’t look destroyed. What happened to the civilization?

Talos Principle City

The building where the robot was being stored and where the AI tests were being performed, was still active. Well, it was abandoned, but there was still power. This further pushes the idea that there was not a war, but further adds to the question of what happened to the people that set this up in the first place. There was still power, so maybe all of the humans are not dead? Perhaps there are some remnants of the civilization still around. The environment looks habitable and clean.

AI Building

If we put the fate of the human race (they may not even be human) aside, we have some other interesting elements that could make up a strong story. We have an advanced civilization that has reached the point where they were able to create a robot that contains an artificial intelligence so advanced that it now possesses free will. That alone is just epic sci-if madness for me. What a a person, what is free will? Deep debates that we had with the Milton assistant struck on so many deep and thought provoking topics. We have a strong moral aspect to the story that constantly makes you think and question your own beliefs and understanding when it comes to the idea of a soul. It is never something we can answer, but we can continue to debate.

The story aspects that Talos Principle left us with already seem like enough to power another game, but there is so much more. The obvious additions to this angle is that if we’re have a civilisation that have essentially created a soul, what other cool shit have they come up with?

This spin off idea is a monstrous long shot. From a game development perspective it would be a huge undertaking and cost a ton of money. However things go, I really hope we see a future entry in the Talos Principle universe. There is so much more I need to know!